


tis the season

by katalicz



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Christmas fic, Fluff and stuff, Gen, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, gsg best friend squad they love each other a lot okay i dont make the rules, it was supposed to be short it ran away, pre!bliban, seriously theres fluff, there is so much fluff in this, theres mistletoe at the end, various shenanigans meant i couldnt get this finished any earlier so sorry bout that lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-09-27 14:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17163563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katalicz/pseuds/katalicz
Summary: Blitz comes home to find a Santa wrapped in barbed wire near the armoury, a herd of light-up reindeer on the lawn, and a Bandit stood under the mistletoe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked for bliban + mistletoe and meant to keep it short and sweet - like, 500w long.  
> I got carried away. A lot.  
> Part 2 coming tomorrow morning bc it's 2am here and I'm tired lol happy holidays yall I hope you enjoy!!  
> EDIT: part 2 coming as soon as im less busy with work lol oops

_Dec. 24th, 21:00_

 

Blitz returns home from a mission in Italy to find the base covered from top to bottom in Christmas decorations.

It’s a bit of a surprise, if he’s honest – he’d completely forgotten that Christmas was a _thing_ , having spent the past two weeks out of contact with society in the middle of nowhere with significantly more important things on his mind, like keeping Doc from running headlong into a room full of C4 to try to get to a wounded Castle, and IQ from wandering off on her own to try and defuse said C4. It’s not the most glamorous job in the world but it keeps them in one piece, and that’s the best he can hope for on a team on people that seem to have no self-preservation _whatsoever_.

So Christmas wasn't really at the front of his mind on the journey home. Nobody on base is particularly religious (and those that are don’t celebrate Christmas anyway), and for the past few years they’ve run missions and training sessions on the 25th like they would any other day of the year. The terrorists don’t take holidays so neither do they, and for that reason Blitz wasn’t expecting to come home to anything more than a handful of gifts from his squad mates and maybe a stollen picked up from the bakery in town.

He definitely isn't expecting the horrifically large inflatable Santa to come looming out of the darkness when they trudge towards the armoury, making IQ flinch in surprise and jump behind him reflexively.

Blitz would find it a lot more endearing if he weren’t swearing in surprise himself and reaching for his empty holster. Castle does the same to his right, Doc drops the crate he’s carrying, and the Santa narrowly avoids being shot in its bulbous belly by Hibana’s pistol when the armoury lights come on and illuminate it properly.

“What the _fuck_ ,” snaps IQ, stepping out from behind Blitz, lip curled up in disgust.

Hibana lowers her pistol. “Is that barbed wire?” she asks in bewilderment, taking a step closer with Castle hot on her heels to inspect the red abomination.

It definitely _is_ barbed wire, wrapped all around the Santa’s middle as though it were tinsel, and Blitz is fairly sure that those are empty magazines hanging off it. He’d be more impressed that the inflatable hasn’t popped if his heart wasn’t beating so quickly in his chest.

Doc looks at him, a long-suffering expression on his tired face. “Montagne said they were putting up decorations, but I didn’t expect _this_ ,” he says, waving a hand at the Santa.

Blitz frowns. “Why are they decorating at all?” he asks, not really looking for an answer, and Doc merely shrugs in response.

“What the _fuck_ ,” IQ says again, louder this time, and really, that sums it all up perfectly well.

“I suppose we’ll find out when we get inside,” he says wearily, and lets her tuck a hand into the crook of his elbow.

“How much do you want to bet Bandit did the wire?” she mutters, giving the Santa a wide berth as they head into the armoury to unpack.

Blitz rolls his eyes and doesn’t take the bet.

 

.

 

They unpack as quickly as possible and encounter a herd of glowing reindeer on the way to the kitchen, scattered across the lawn in various _positions_ that Blitz is fairly sure were never intended by the manufacturers.

_“Why,”_ IQ groans, and drags a hand down her face. Hibana shrugs, but there’s a smile playing around the corner of her mouth that grows when she meets Blitz’s eyes.

He hushes IQ as gently as he can and shakes his head at Hibana in mock exasperation. IQ’s snappier than normal, both from sleep deprivation and the bruise he knows is spreading across her shoulder like an ink stain, from the bullet she caught in her armour. Doc had checked it and given her painkillers, but IQ is nothing if not horribly stubborn and has not taken any of them under the insistence that she’s fine, and it’s now painfully obvious to anyone with eyes that she is not.

Hibana rolls her eyes fondly back at him before stepping forwards to pull the kitchen door open and usher them all inside.

They’re hit by a rush of hot air and the smell of cinnamon and spice and alcohol, and for a moment Blitz is terribly, horribly homesick. It smells the same as it used to when he’d wander around the Christmas markets back in Bremen, his family by his side and an infectious feeling of happiness filling the air.

He doesn’t realise that he’s frozen still in the doorway until IQ tugs gently at his hand to pull him properly inside, and that’s when he notices that the kitchen table is surrounded by a mass of operators, and that they’re all clutching icing bags and gingerbread cookies. There's tinsel wrapped around the hood over the stove, which he’s fairly sure is a fire hazard, and a string of fairy lights running along the doorframe to the lights in the middle of the room and across to the cabinets. It’s bizarre and so unexpected that for a moment all he can do is gape – and from the silence coming from his accomplices means he can’t be the only one doing so.

The door closes heavily behind Hibana, loud enough to cut through the noise of the room. The room falls still for a brief moment before Rook and Ash both cry, “You’re back!” in unison, before grinning and slapping their icing-covered hands together in a high-five.

Doc is the first to react, and he takes a cautious step forwards. “What is going on?” he asks tiredly, running a hand down his face and looking as though he’s dreading the answer. Blitz can take a guess at what it is, but really, he’s sure that whatever he comes up with won’t hold a candle to the truth. He takes the time to instead glance around the room, searching for Bandit and Jäger and only just able to hide his disappointment when he doesn’t spot them. He trusts them to give him a straight answer – the others at the table all have the tendency to exaggerate everything ever. So do his teammates, of course, but he at least knows how to get the full story from them.

“It’s Christmas!” Twitch says excitedly, throwing up her hands to gesture at the decorations.

Blitz sees at least four people roll their eyes, and he doesn’t have to be looking at her to know that IQ does the same.

“Six called yesterday, gave us all the week off,” Mute chimes in, looking perfectly composed despite the outrageously bright sweater he’s wearing, and the bright red icing that’s smeared across his forehead. A glance at Smoke’s hands confirms to Blitz that he’s the one who put it there. “’Said that as long as at least five of us stay sober and ready for action, we don’t have to do shit.”

Blitz blinks. “What?” he hears himself ask, still rooted to the spot in surprise. IQ has given up with pulling at his arm and steps aside to let Castle and Hibana past.

“We’ve had a long year,” Ash says, grinning as she swats at Castle’s outstretched hand in a weak attempt to stop him ruffling her hair in greeting. “So unless something really big comes up, we’ve all got the time off to do whatever we want.”

Blitz isn't really sure how that translates to covering the kitchen in flour and sugar, strapping an inflatable Santa down with barbed wire, and covering the lawn with more light-up reindeer than a single shop is capable of selling, but he decides not to ask. He’s too tired to want to listen to a complicated explanation, and the sweet smell is starting to turn sickly, threatening to give him a headache.

“Sure,” he says instead, nodding as though it makes perfect sense, which really, it kind of does. It’s to be expected that the base would go a little bit loopy at being given a surprise holiday – they’ve never all had time off at once and never been given the opportunity to celebrate any holidays; there’s always something going on somewhere, be it a mission or planning or training, and it had been agreed fairly quickly upon reforming Rainbow that they wouldn’t bother with Christmas or Hanukkah or anything else. There’s not much point celebrating when they’re all busy, and none of them are religious enough to be particularly fussed by that – saving lives comes before anything else, and that’s exactly how it should be.

He’s sure that there’s something they’re not mentioning, some sort of catch that will bring the festivities to a halt, but the room goes back to decorating before he can ask, Castle and Hibana parking themselves on stools and telling them about the mission in voices that are already loud and promise to get louder.

IQ presses herself back against his side, and he drops an arm around her waist to take her weight reflexively. “Can we go now?” she asks. She sounds tired, and Blitz isn't surprised – now that they’re home and safe, all the adrenaline he had left from the mission has drained away, leaving him aching and sore and wanting nothing more than to collapse into bed.

He hums in agreement and they squeeze past the table to the hall, a chorus of ‘ _Goodnight!_ ’s following them out and a sharp reminder from Doc telling IQ to take it easy.

They make their way to their floor in a comfortable silence. It takes longer than it should – the stairs are steep, and the motion moves IQ’s shoulder enough to make her grimace, but she doesn’t complain and Blitz knows better than to offer to carry her. He texts Bandit and Jäger instead – _we’re home, meet in IQ’s room?_ – and shows her the reply of _yes of course, on our way!!_ that comes from Jäger less than ten seconds later.

By the time they reach her room, she’s trembling slightly and has her teeth sunk into her bottom lip.

“Why didn’t you make me take the meds,” she grumbles, leaning into Blitz whilst she tries the door. It’s still locked – the others must be out somewhere.

“I did,” he reminds her, flicking her gently on the ear and stealing the key. “You refused because you’re stubborn and don’t seem to realise that you’re not weak for needing them.”

“Shut up,” she replies, but there’s no bite to it, and Blitz doesn’t take offence. He just wraps an arm back around her and helps her inside to her bed, where she collapses with a groan.

He leaves her alone for a second to get a cup of water from the bathroom, and when he returns she’s stripped down to her base layers and has opened the packet of tablets. He puts the cup on the bedside table and toes off his shoes before sitting on the end of the bed.

“Do you think they were serious, down there?” she asks him once she’s swallowed down the painkillers, dragging a hand through her short hair to relieve it from its loose plait.

“Maybe?” he replies, shrugging. “They might have misunderstood what Six said, I don’t think she’s foolish enough to give us all time off at once.”

IQ hums and pats the space in the bed besides her. It’s queen sized, the first thing she’d bought with her pay check from joining Rainbow, and there’s enough room that all four of them can all fit on it at once if they want. Blitz had been confused when he saw it for the first time – the single that she’d been given had been comfortable enough and a damn sight nicer than the beds back home – but it’s possibly the best purchase any of them have ever made. If he didn’t already have a double, he would get one too – it’s the perfect size to spread out on and he knows for a fact that three people can easily lie on it without touching, which comes in useful when he’s able to lay down without jostling IQ at all.

“I hope they didn’t,” she murmurs when he’s settled, eyes closed and face more open than Blitz has seen it in a while. He’s well aware of her tendency to shut herself away, trying to be the best she can, trying to make herself seem untouchable and infallible, and with the arrival of the new operators, her efforts have doubled. It’s nice to see her relax, for once, and he reaches over to squeeze her hand comfortingly. She reaches over to turn off the light, and Blitz is hit with a fresh wave of exhaustion as his eyes fall closed.

“Me too,” he murmurs back, too tired to think of anything else to say.

She just squeezes his hand in reply.

 

…

 

_Dec. 25 th, 00:30_

 

Jäger and Bandit seem to arrive a few seconds after Blitz closes his eyes, but a glance at the clock reveals that it’s gone midnight, and IQ is fast asleep against his side.

He somehow feels worse than he did before his impromptu nap and he’d quite like to go back to sleep for maybe a week, but he figures that he might as well stay awake and try to make sense of what the hell’s going on.

The room is still dark, and he can only just make out the vague shapes of people moving around – he only knows that it’s Jäger and Bandit because he knows the sound of their footsteps so well, and every now and then one of them (mostly Jäger) bumps into something and curses, and the other fiercely shushes them.

So he sits himself up and reaches for the light he knows is somewhere on the bedside table to his left, and turns it on.

Jäger freezes like a deer in headlights, a crate of _something_ in his hands and a guilty expression on his face. Bandit is by the desk, which is now covered in scissors and rolls of tape and string.

“You’re awake!” Jäger says, as chirpy as ever despite the hour, and makes his way over the desk to put the crate down.

“What—” Blitz starts to say, then cuts himself off. “Actually, you know what? I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me, just get in bed.”

Bandit tells him, because he is nothing if not contrary. “It’s mistletoe. We’ve hung it in every major doorway in the base, including Doc’s office and the bathrooms.”

Jäger hits him in the side. Blitz drags a hand down his face in exasperation.

_“Why,”_ he says, half wanting an answer and half wanting to bury his face in the pillow.

“Six gave us the week off,” Bandit replies, shrugging. He makes his way over to the bed and lays down next to Blitz, stretching out as casually as a cat. Blitz pinches him in the ribs, mostly because he can and partially so that he stops exposing his unfairly toned midriff. “So apparently, we’re celebrating still being alive, Christmas, Hanukkah, and whatever it is that Mute mentioned earlier, the one with the lights-?”

“Diwali,” Jäger chips in helpfully.

“Yeah, that – all in one go, since we don’t usually get to. Don’t ask why, I don’t know. But we’re all getting drunk and eating cake or something, I'm not really sure.”

Blitz blinks in surprise. “We actually have the time off?”

“Yup – apart from whoever it is that’s on emergency standby – which is none of us, which is cool,” Jäger says. He sprawls himself across the foot of the bed and procures a blanket from somewhere on the floor. He’ll undoubtedly end up on top of all three of them by morning, as he tends to do, but it’s a nice pretence of giving them all space.

“Huh,” Blitz says mildly, and lays back down. IQ wriggles her way back into his side in her sleep. Bandit rolls his eyes and flicks off the bedside light to plunge them back into darkness.

“How’s she doing?” he asks quietly.

Blitz hums and relaxes back into the bed. His eyes close on their own accord, and now that he’s surrounded by the people he loves, it’s even harder to stay awake than it was before. “It’s not too bad, I don’t think, and Doc said she’ll be fine to carry on as normal if she takes the meds—”

_“If,”_ Jäger snorts. Bandit kicks him.

“-but she was pretty grumpy all the way home. Are we doing presents?”

“Fuck no,” Bandit snorts, rolling over to face the wall.

“I mean, we can if you want?” Jäger says. “But we figured it’s too much hassle. Since today is technically Christmas day and all. You should probably try to sleep, you know.”

“No, it’s fine,” Blitz yawns. “I’m not that bothered. Why is there a Santa?”

“It’s Thermite’s. Go to sleep, you idiot,” Bandit huffs, and a pair of cold feet come to press beneath Blitz’s calf. “You’ll see it all in the morning.”

Blitz manages to hum something like an affirmative, distantly aware of Jäger saying something but too far gone to hear it as more than a mumble, and it doesn’t take long before he falls back asleep.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know HOW this came to be 5.5k words long - I tend to remble ten times more than usual when I write Blitz lmao he has a complete mind of his own.  
> Happy very late Holidays, I hope you all had a lovely time!!!!

 

_25 th Dec, 11:45_

Blitz wakes to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of quiet bickering, which is a far nicer thing to wake to than the bleeping of an alarm, even if Jäger and IQ are talking far too quickly and far too loudly. There's something impossibly warm slung over his waist, and he quickly decides that it's the best morning he's had in weeks. It's certainly an improvement from the narrow, hard beds they'd been given for the mission, and knowing that he's surrounded by the people he trusts most in the world makes something in his chest settle and leaves him feeling comfortably heavy.

He blinks his eyes open against the brightness of the room and tries to work out where he's ended up. It's a rare occasion that the four of them sleep in the same place - it usually happens following a long, hard mission or an injury or particularly bad nightmares, when the best comfort is physical touch to help them confirm that they're all still alive. It's happened enough times, though, that Blitz knows to be wary about how he gets up: he'd elbowed IQ in the stomach the first time and Jäger in the face the second, which they like to bring up on any occasion when they’re trying to get him to do them a favour, the bastards.

Besides, he really doesn't want to wake up in a _compromised_ position with Bandit (which seems to keep happening despite his best efforts to make space between them); not when he still can't quite figure out how to act around him. If he's lucky, he'll be able to get up with no trouble and with no knowing smirks from Jäger and IQ, but of course life isn't ever nice, and a quick glance around reveals that the weight around his waist is an arm, and that he's firmly entwined his hand with set of long, calloused fingers that can only be Bandit’s.

He tries to untangle himself as carefully as possible, but his fingers are stiff with sleep and aren't quite cooperating, and it’s far more of a struggle than it has any right to be. He doesn't want to wake Bandit up with the motion; none of them sleep particularly well at the best of times, and despite Bandit’s pretence otherwise, Blitz knows it affects him far more than it does anyone else, so it would be cruel to wake him when he so clearly needs the rest. Besides, he thinks glumly, Bandit would probably laugh at their situation, and that would hurt Blitz far more than he thinks it probably should.

The fumbling movement catches Jäger’s attention, and he stops talking midsentence to waggle his eyebrows at Blitz. The tips of his ears burn red with something that's not quite embarrassment at the attention, and he doubles his efforts to free himself as gently as possible.

“Alright there, Bli?” Jäger asks, a shark-like grin on his face, and if he weren't sat at the other end of the bed and clutching a hot mug of coffee, Blitz wouldn't hesitate to lob a pillow at him.

IQ has no such reservations and neatly sends one sailing into Jäger’s smug face, just lightly enough that none of the coffee splashes anywhere but on Jäger’s shirt. “Don't be cruel,” she scolds him, but she's grinning just as wide as he is, and Blitz is once again seriously regretting telling them about his _feelings_.

He struggles once more before he manages to release Bandit’s hand; it flops down to lay on the bed and Bandit lets out what sounds like a sigh. If Blitz were a braver man – or if he didn’t have two _idiots_ sat smirking knowingly at him – he’d stay still and bask in the warmth and the security, and maybe pretend for a little while that Bandit feels the same way as he does.

But he’s not brave, not with this, and he respects Bandit too much to do that to him, anyway. Instead, he slips loose from the gentle hold and sits up, accepting the mug of tea that IQ passes him and kicking Jäger gently in the ribs.

“Don’t you _dare_ say anything,” he says, despite knowing that almost nothing will stop Jäger from teasing him for the rest of the month.

Jäger pretends to zip his mouth shut, eyes dancing, and drinks his coffee.

“We do have the week off,” IQ begins, when Blitz has drunk half of his tea and stopped blushing. “Until the 29th, apparently, then it’s back to work as normal.”

“So it’s not _really_ a week, it’s more like 4 days,” Jäger grins, and earns another pillow thrown at him, courtesy of IQ, for his trouble.

“Stop being a dick,” Blitz says, because Jäger is nothing if not pedantic and IQ is nothing if not annoyed by it, and he doesn’t really want them to start arguing again, whether it’s playful or not. “Why are there decorations?”

“Six said, and I quote, ‘go wild, you’ve earned it, but please don’t spend all our funds or I will kill you,’ so we decided to celebrate as many holidays as possible in one go, since we don’t usually get chance to,” Jäger explains happily.

“So Christmas is today, since it’s actually Christmas, then Ash is putting something together for Hanukah tomorrow, and Mute is doing something for Diwali after that,” IQ continues, as though she’d been in on it since the start, and hadn’t been frothing at the mouth in anger the night before. “And Mira and Jackal want to do something with tomatoes?”

Jäger shrugs. “I think so? But we’re all joining in with everything. Thatcher bought about five hundred candles and _so many_ paint balls for Mute’s thing and I saw Ash carrying, like, ten deep-fryers, so that should all be good fun.”

Blitz nods slowly. “We’re all going to die,” he says mildly, because really, it’s the truth. The base will burn down, or someone will get alcohol poisoning, or there will be another incident with a drunk idiot and the Roomba that _someone_ (Smoke) duct-taped a knife to.

Jäger shrugs again. “Maybe? It’ll be fun, though. Better than being shot.”

“Not that you’d know what that feels like,” IQ teases. Jäger flips her off and sticks out his tongue.

Blitz rolls his eyes fondly, sensing more impending bickering that he’s too tired to join in with, and downs the rest of his tea. “I’m going to go and shower, then,” he says, before slowly making his way out of the bed and trying his best not to jostle Bandit, who is somehow still asleep. “Are we all meeting somewhere later for food or what, what’s happening?”

“Food is at three, then we’re watching films and eating cake and pretending to open presents,” Jäger says, waving. “I’d say go and bake something traditional for us all to share, but you’d probably just give us food poisoning.”

“I hate you,” Blitz tells him good-naturedly – it’s not exactly a secret that his cooking skills are less than subpar - and takes their empty mugs. “And _please_ don’t say anything to him.”

He nods toward Bandit, who’s curled around a pillow, still sleeping and looking all the younger for it. It makes something in his chest tighten, not quite uncomfortably, and when he looks back at the other two they're watching him with something he can’t read in their eyes.

“We won’t, I promise,” IQ says warmly, sinking back down in the bed. “Go and shower, you probably smell. I know I do.”

Jäger wrinkles his nose and pretends to move away from her, and Blitz takes that as his cue to leave.

He pads barefoot to his room, which has mistletoe hung from the doorframe, because of course it does. There’s also a tiny wreath of what looks like wire that’s been spray-painted red and green, stuck to the door at eye-level, and a quick glance reveals that all the doors along the corridor are outfitted in the same way. It’s cute and it makes him smile – he loves Christmas, even if it’s going to be the weirdest one of his life – and makes him wonder just how much more he’s going to find downstairs.

 

* * *

 

 

_13:00_

Every single door he passes on his way to the kitchen has mistletoe on it, and he’d commend Bandit and Jäger for their efforts if he didn’t know how much _chaos_ it will almost certainly bring about later when the base gets busier. There’s tinsel in the hallways and the occasional lawn gnome sat in corners, all with red paint jobs that get significantly sloppier with each one he passes. He’s glad they weren’t there last night, or he’d definitely have had a heart attack, and IQ would have screamed the entire base down to the ground.

He doesn’t pass anyone in the halls, which he thinks is odd until he reaches the common room, which is half full of people and half full of alcohol. He waves in greeting and gets a chorus of “Happy Christmas’s!” back. Sledge, who’s wearing a very unflattering green hat and is clutching a bottle of beer, tells him that the others are in the kitchen and that food is at three, and if he’s late he won’t starve because they’re making enough to feed a town.

He’s right – the kitchen is packed, both with food and ‘the others’, who consist of the designated chefs for each regiment, all fighting for counter space and shouting over each other, as per usual.

There’s already three cooked turkeys sat on the kitchen table, but Thatcher seems to be having an argument with yet another whilst an amused looking Smoke watches on. Montagne is carrying a basket full of some kind of seafood – “Oysters,” he reveals later, when Blitz finally manages to get over to his side of the room - and Rook is diligently making dainty pastries next to him. Glaz is making the most extravagant salad that Blitz has ever seen, Kapkan acting as his sous chef and nodding patiently as Glaz fires rapid instructions at him.  

There’s pastries in the small oven and a pile of various cookies that covers four plates sat on the table, well away from the meat. Blitz takes one at Frost’s instruction – a dainty shortbread star, still warm and flaky and delicious - and it serves as breakfast when he finds that almost all the normal food has gone and been replaced with piles of breads and crackers and cheeses and meats and, Smoke reveals with a grin, an enormous pile of cakes that will probably last them until March.

To his surprise, Hibana has baked an excellent looking stollen – apparently a Japanese tradition, and she looks thrilled when he complements her on it - and Thermite is carefully frying chicken at the stove. There’s a few bowls of steaming, colourful rice sat on a hot-plate to his left – from Caveira, he learns, who was up at six to make them so that she could avoid the mad rush. Blitz doesn’t blame her – it’s more than a little bit chaotic and the heat is making him feel a little bit dizzy, and his offers to help are fortunately refused – there isn't any room for him to stand even if they’d accepted – so he escapes outside to go for a run instead.

(He discovers that, alongside the reindeer and the Santa, there are also two inflatable snowmen, a very lopsided Christmas tree decorated with more painted magazines and wire, an army of smaller, plastic snowmen, and that all the targets in the short practice range have had red hats drawn on them with varying degrees of skill.)

 

* * *

 

 

_16:15_

He can't remember the last time he ate enough to feel sick from it, but it’s Christmas, and he can’t find it in himself to care. Sledge was right with his estimations of having enough to feed a town - there's leftovers that'll last _well_ into the new year - and that's without starting on the pile of cake that someone (Smoke, _again_ ) has put under the badly decorated Christmas tree in the large common room.

Blitz half listens to Tachanka’s overly dramatic speech - something about friendship, capitalism, and the weirdness of having a man in a red suit come down a chimney - and leans back in his chair as best he can. The four tables that have been pushed together in the armoury - the largest room they have - still aren't quite big enough to fit them all, so he's packed in with Bandit on his right and a rather drunk IQ on his left, elbows knocking together and drinks being drunk very, _very_ carefully to avoid sending them flying (which, unsurprisingly, happened to Rook less than a minute after sitting down).

Tachanka must finish his speech, for the table erupts into rambunctious applause, led by an extraordinarily drunk Fuze, and Pulse calls, “If you want to watch _Die Hard_ , be in the big lounge in ten. If not, fuck off!”

“Fuck you!” shouts back Blackbeard good-naturedly. Pulse must be drunk too, for he uncharacteristically sticks out his tongue and flips Blackbeard off instead of replying. The room erupts into noise again and Pulse staggers off, Ash steadying him as subtly as possible and looking as though she wishes she had a camera.

“This is so _weird_ ,” Bandit murmurs to Blitz, his breath warm on his ear.

Blitz laughs. “Tell me about it,” he grins, watching as the table all tries to move at once and fails spectacularly, thanks to the close quarters and the increasing loss of inhibitions. For once, he’s too focused on the chaos to be nervous about the proximity, and Bandit has been perfectly normal with him all dinner so maybe, for the first time _ever_ , IQ had managed to keep Jäger’s big mouth shut.

“What did you say?” asks IQ, her face flushed pink. It contrasts terribly with her short, blond hair and her fluffy purple sweater.

“They called you weird,” Jäger grins from her other side. She pouts and pinches him in the ribs.

“Wanna go get seats?” Blitz says, before Bandit can chip in with a snarky retort, and he doesn’t have to be looking at him to see him roll his eyes. “There's not going to be enough chairs for everyone, and I _really_ want the blue sofa.”

Jäger hums in agreement, IQ nods cheerfully, and Bandit makes a noise that isn't a no, so they squeeze their way away from the table as carefully as possible, deposit their paper plates in the black bin bag some thoughtful soul left by the door, and head down the hall, taking single file at the doors to avoid the mistletoe.

Their sofa is thankfully empty - which might have something to do with the sign that simply says _NO_ sat in the middle of it - and Ash is patiently talking Pulse through working the DVD player, a bright grin on her face and a glass of water in her hand. She winks at them through the kerfuffle and points at the ceiling near the lamp, where one of Valkyrie’s black eyes is just about visible.

“You're the best,” IQ tells her happily, and Ash blows her a kiss. IQ staggers as she tries to ‘catch’ it, bumping into Jäger and sending him into the back of an armchair occupied by a tired looking Jackal.

“This is so stupid,” Bandit says, a smile on his face and eyes crinkling warmly, and he takes his place at the end of the sofa before Jäger can do anything like punch him.

IQ stumbles into Blitz to push him down by Bandit’s side - she looks far too smug for it to be an accident - and waits for Jäger to sit before settling down at their feet and leaning back on Bandit’s legs. Twitch joins her after a few minutes and promptly uses Blitz’s in the same way, the pair whispering loudly to each other whilst the others pretend not to hear.

Jäger turns to lean on the armrest and throws his legs across Blitz’s lap and into Bandit’s, which goes as well as Blitz expects when Bandit immediately digs his fingers into the underside of Jäger’s socked feet and makes him screech.

“No,” Bandit says calmly, as though Jäger’s legs aren’t thrashing around madly on top of him, and it says something about the state of the room that not a single person present turns to see what’s going on.

“I’m taking up space!” Jäger yelps, retracting his feet and pressing them under Blitz’s thigh instead. “Then IQ has somewhere to sit later, _and_ we don’t have to share with anyone else!”

It also gives him full view of the door, which he uses to his advantage to call out, “Mistletoe! You gotta kiss!” every time more than one person walks through at once – which is surprisingly often, and his targets are surprisingly compliant, much to his joy.

The room fills quickly, which isn't unexpected, and Blitz was right to guess that there isn't enough space for everyone. Mira settles herself down on top of Jackal as though it’s perfectly routine and the four FBI somehow manage to squeeze themselves, Hibana, and Blackbeard onto a three-seat couch. IQ does leave the floor after a few minutes to wriggle her way between Jäger and Blitz, Twitch leaves to throw herself across Rook’s lap, and a tired looking Capitaõ politely informs Echo that if he doesn’t move out of his armchair, he’s going to turn _Yokai_ to paste yet again.

Blitz watches in amusement as Sledge lifts a complaining Smoke up like a cat so that his two teammates can sit down, and startles as Bandit shifts to curl his legs underneath him before leaning into Blitz’s arm.

“Don’t wake me if I fall asleep,” he says lowly, and Blitz uses it as an excuse to look at him properly for the first time that day. He _does_ look tired, the bags below his eyes back with force and the worry lines across his forehead far deeper than they had been in the morning. It’s probably the stress of having so many people doing so many things, he figures; any sort of routine that anyone normally has has been completely destroyed, today, which makes it impossible to predict what will happen next, which he knows Bandit likes to be able to do out of both paranoia and habit.

“If you manage to sleep with all this going on, I’ll give you a medal,” he replies, quietly enough that IQ doesn’t hear him.

Bandit snorts, his eyes fixed on the TV screen, which is finally working and flashing the main menu on repeat. “I’m sure you won’t let them get too out of hand,” he says, an unreadable expression on his face, then carefully, as though asking permission, drops his head to rest on Blitz’s shoulder.

Castle waves his arms and calls for quiet before Blitz can reply, so he just pats Bandit on the leg in what he hopes is a reassuring manner, throws the arm near IQ over the back of the sofa to give them a bit more room, and settles in to watch whatever it is the others have agreed upon.

 

* * *

 

 

_~23:30_

By the time the third film of the series has started, at least half the room is asleep. Blitz can’t feel his legs or the arm that Bandit’s pressed against, has drunk three glasses of mulled wine that Montagne brought around earlier, and still isn't really sure what the plotline of the films are despite Jäger’s hasty explanations.

He must drift off for a while after that, because it seems like no time at all before the fourth one begins, this time without the loud introduction that Pulse had given the others – mostly because he’s snoring against Blackbeard’s shoulder. Castle pops the disk in in his place, manages to switch the subtitles to Spanish instead of English, and gives up trying to fix it when the first bit of action starts.

Blitz does a quick headcount to find that there are only ten of them left awake, including himself and a drowsy Jäger, and none of them look particularly invested in what’s going on on-screen. Someone had turned the volume down partway through the second one, when Jackal and Fuze had first passed out, so it’s a bit tricky trying to hear what’s going on, and he doesn’t speak enough Spanish to completely follow what’s happening either.

(He’s not exactly sure how any of them are Christmas films, if he’s honest, but that’s balanced out by the overwhelming smell of cinnamon and cloves and gingerbread that had wafted through from the kitchen when Frost had gone searching for eggnog.)

There’s a particularly loud bang and a flashy explosion on-screen that makes him flinch, just a little, and wakes IQ from where she’d been asleep and drooling on his shirt.

“Are we really still watching this?” she asks, voice slightly slurred but far better than it was a few hours before.

Another explosion answers her question before Blitz can, and she sighs. “Could one of you get me a glass of water? I’d go myself, but I can’t feel my feet.”

“Neither can I!” Jäger chips in with a whisper-shout, eyes flashing amber from the glare of the TV and making him look rather demonic. “And I would like some water too, please.”

“You’re the worst,” Blitz tells them, because Bandit is sleeping on his other shoulder, thankfully _not_ drooling, and he really doesn’t want to wake him even though he could really do with a drink himself.

Jäger and IQ pout in perfect unison, as though they’ve taken the time to practice it. Blitz wouldn’t be surprised if they had.

It’s very effective, though, and they look so miserable that he can’t refuse them, bleeding heart that he is, and he groans.  “Fine. But you owe me one.”

Jäger grins. “You _already_ owed me one, so we’re all owed out. Could you get me some cake, too?”

“And if there are mince pies left, I’d like one, please!”

Blitz rolls his eyes fondly. “How many arms do you think I have?” he says, and is once more hit with twin pouts.

He throws his arms up the best he can in mock annoyance, and promptly freezes when Bandit stirs.

“It’s fine, I’ll help,” Bandit drawls, stretching and inadvertently pressing further into Blitz’s side. He’s impossibly warm and close, and Blitz can’t do much more than make a tiny wheeze as he pats the top of his thigh tiredly. “Could use a drink, anyway.”

He heaves himself up, using Blitz for leverage, and stretches dramatically to reveal his pale midriff and the corner of the tattoo that Blitz knows curls around the back of his pelvis. Blitz glances away, and finds Jäger and IQ peering at him, both grinning like sharks and looking as though they’re plotting something.

He narrows his eyes at them before getting up too, legs aching with relief, and steadies Bandit with a hand to the back as he wobbles.

“We’ll be back in a minute,” he sighs, and IQ smiles, a faux innocent smile on her face.

“Thank you!” she says sweetly before turning her attention back towards the screen.

…

The kitchen is empty when they reach it, as expected, and Bandit immediately hops up onto the counter to get the last few cups out from the back of the cupboard.

Blitz distracts himself from that with cake – Jäger hadn’t said which one he wanted, so he can have fruit loaf as pre-emptive revenge for whatever it is that he’s got planned. There are no pies left so he gets IQ a tiny piece of stollen, pops a cherry in his mouth, and turns around to find Bandit stood looking at the sink in disgust.

“I hate this place,” Bandit says, lip curled in disgust. “It’s as bad as a drug den.”

Blitz wanders over. “Speaking from experience?” he asks lightly, because he _still_ isn't quite sure how to talk about the root of Bandit’s troubles, even though he knows about the whole thing in full, gory detail.

Bandit snorts and rolls his eyes. “At least _they_ had the decency to puke in a bin, or a toilet. Not the fucking _sink_.”

Blitz wrinkles his nose and puts the plates of food down on the cleanest looking counter top he can find. “I think that was probably Fuze. Glaz said something about having to clean up, later.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Bandit huffs, shaking his head. “Are there any water bottles in the fridge? I'm not using this, it’s _awful_.”

There are, so Blitz pulls out four and tosses two into Bandit’s waiting hands. He shoves the other pair under his arm and picks up the plates with only a little bit of trouble, then smiles at Bandit and says, “Shall we go then?”

Bandit rolls his eyes again and grins. “Give me the bottles, idiot, you’re going to drop them.”

“You have such little faith in me,” Blitz grins back, but lets Bandit tug them free and slip them into the pockets of his hoodie.

Bandit gets the doors, because he isn't at risk of throwing crumbs everywhere if his hands slip, and motions Blitz though first, which is fine until they reach the common room.

He steps through and pauses out of habit to wait for Bandit, and spots the way Jäger nudges IQ, an excited look on his face, exactly one second before he spots the mistletoe above them.

_Well, fuck._

He’s fairly sure Jäger would be shouting with glee if he wouldn’t get in trouble for waking everyone up (and he thanks any god that there might be that most people _are_ asleep), and Bandit freezes mid-step as he realises what has happened.

“We don’t have to,” he hears Bandit say, through the panicked buzzing that has filled his head. “It’s fine, go and sit down.”

There’s something odd in Bandit’s voice that snaps him out of his dithering, and before he knows it he’s shaking his head.

“It’s tradition,” he says weakly, staring over Bandit’s shoulder instead of looking him in the eye. “You know what they’ll be like if we don’t.”

Bandit shrugs awkwardly and takes a step closer. “Are you sure?” he asks, and Blitz realises then that he’s _nervous_ , and the knowledge than Bandit is just as worried as he is gives him the courage to meet his eyes.

“Sure,” he says, far more cheerfully than he feels, and takes a step towards Bandit.

Bandit nods as though steeling himself, which hurts to see, and carefully, as though giving Blitz time to back out, leans down to kiss him.

His lips are warm and chapped on Blitz’s own, and it takes half a second for Blitz to react to the gentle pressure before giving back as good as he’s got. If this is his only chance to kiss him, he’s going to make the most of it, goddamn it – and to his surprise, Bandit doesn’t pull away.

He pushes closer instead and kisses him fiercely, electrically, as though it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, making Blitz’s knees tremble and his heart leap in his chest like it’s alive. He whines, because he can’t _not_ , not with Bandit kissing the air from his lungs and the thoughts from his head, and he’s about to drop the damn plates and wrap himself around Bandit’s neck when someone (he’s going to _slaughter_ Jäger) wolf-whistles behind them.

Bandit pulls away with a noise that Blitz thinks is a sigh, and Blitz would quite like to melt into the floor, away from the stares that he can feel burning into his back.

He opens his eyes – when had he closed them? – and finds Bandit staring at him searchingly, lips slightly parted and a soft look in his eyes that makes Blitz’s heart ache. He wants to pull away, to joke – _it’s tradition, it was nothing_ – but he’s rooted to the spot and feels rather like someone’s taken a knife and carved him open, laid out for all to see.

 _“Bandit,”_ he says, his voice almost a whine, caught between fear and hope, desperation and terror - and something in Bandit’s expression changes so minutely that he wouldn’t have noticed if they weren’t stood so close together.

Bandit closes his mouth, chewing on the inside of his cheek, and seems to hesitate before taking hold of Blitz’s arm and murmuring, “Come with me.”

Blitz follows, his legs moving on autopilot – he hasn’t got much choice in the matter, with the grip that Bandit’s both physically and mentally got on him – and they end up back in the kitchen.

Bandit lets him go to close the door behind them, his hands trembling ever so slightly, which does _something_ to relieve the knot of anxiety that’s tied itself somewhere around Blitz’s ribcage.

He puts the plates down out of a lack of anything else to do, and when he turns back around, Bandit is there, looking more afraid than Blitz has ever seen him.

“Ban,” he says softly, intending to apologise for screwing up whatever friendship they have, and Bandit takes a step closer.

 _“Blitz,”_ Bandit replies, voice hoarse and tinged with the same nervy desperation that Blitz is feeling, has been feeling on some level all day, all _year_ , and - oh.

 _Oh_.

He opens his arms in a silent, cautious invitation in case he’s read this wrong, and Bandit moves closer just as carefully.

“Are you sure?” he asks, so quietly that Blitz nearly misses it, eyes anxiously searching Blitz’s own for the answer that Blitz has already found.

Blitz reaches out to take hold of the back of Bandit’s neck with one hand and gently lays the other on the scruff of his cheek. “ _Yes_ ,” he says, just as quietly and a hundred times more fiercely, and meets Bandit halfway as he surges down to kiss him again.

 

* * *

 

_26 th Dec, 08:00_

So, overall, it’s definitely the weirdest Christmas that Blitz has ever had. They don’t go back to the common room – Blitz’s feet start to hurt after half an hour of necking in the kitchen, and they nervously, slowly relocate to Bandits room instead – which is a good thing because according to Jäger, Pulse awakens from his slumber to vomit all over the couch before falling straight back asleep, which effectively puts an end to the evening.

It’s also possibly the best Christmas he's ever had – sure, it’s not Bremen with it’s beautiful Christmas markets and his childhood friends and his parents and cousins and various nieces and nephews, but he’s with family all the same, and it’s been absurdly nice just to sit back and watch the mess of people he’d call friends celebrate in their own little ways with their own personal and national traditions.

And he's got Bandit now, too – who, he learns from the man himself, had been hopelessly pining for just as long as Blitz had, which he’d confined in both Jäger and IQ, too. This throws Blitz _completely_ off kilter with his perception of Jäger’s secret keeping abilities – so he’d definitely count that as a bonus.

By the way Bandit watches him, eyes impossibly soft and warm and successfully turning Blitz’s innards to goo, occasionally reaching out to touch him as though in awe, he’d say that Bandit thinks the same thing too.

Bandit gently flicks him on the nose and rolls his eyes when Blitz screws up the courage to ask if he is happy, if he regrets what they’ve become.

“Of course I am, dipshit,” he answers affectionately, and gently squeezes where he’s holding onto Blitz’s arm. “I’ve got _you_.”

Blitz _really_ doesn’t know how to respond to that with anything that isn't a weird, emotional croaking noise, so he takes advantage of their new _relationship_ to grab Bandit by the cheeks and kiss him again.

 

* * *

 

.

 ..

_(26 th/27th Dec)_

(When they wake in the morning, in Bandit’s bed but the same position they’d been in the night before, every single hint of Christmas is gone and there are menorahs and dreidels on every flat surface instead. Ash and Buck teach them all to make _levivot_ and _sufganiyot_ with varying degrees of success and only a handful of small oil-burns that Doc makes them treat themselves, because he’s on _holiday_ , thank you very much. They play far too many board games, barely make a dent on the pile of chocolate coins that Ash ordered in bulk, and pass out in the common room yet again after watching _Dirty Dancing_ (which, according to Buck, is a _classic_ ) and an impossibly long musical that Ash knows every single word to.)

(Bandit, who is surprisingly tactile, stays pressed against Blitz’s side almost all day, as though to reassure himself that it’s all _real_. Blitz knows exactly how he feels - and also oddly light, as though a weight he didn’t know he was has lifted from his shoulders. Bandit smiles slowly when Blitz tells him this, kisses him squarely on the mouth, and says the same.)

(The menorahs are still up in the morning, but everything else is gone and a gleeful Mute makes them all clean the base from top to bottom before dropping a huge box of candles on the floor and telling them to “go wild.”. Blitz is pleasantly surprised when nobody burns anything down – though Bandit does try to light Jäger’s sleeve on fire more than once, in vengeance for the handful of condoms that he threw at them that morning. He successfully manages to land a green paintball squarely between Jäger’s eyes later on, during a paintball fight that is supposed to be decorative but ends up competitive on the front lawn. It’s the most fun that Blitz has had in a long time, and Mute looks rather smug when he tells him that in the evening.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you see any inaccuracies surrounding Hanukah and Diwali, please let me know so I can fix them!! I'm English and in a VERY white, mostly Christian part of the country, so I unfortunately know very little about either holiday, so most of what is mentioned here comes from various sources on the internet!!  
> find me @katalicz.tumbr.com  
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> find me @ katalicz.tumblr.com  
> ty for reading i love you all a lot


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